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Graeme Smith slams Springbok racial rifts

Graeme Smith has appealed for the South African rugby team to heal their rifts after being torn apart by a racism scandal

Wisden CricInfo staff
12-Sep-2003
Graeme Smith has appealed for the South African rugby team to heal their rifts after being torn apart by a racism scandal. In a column in today's Cape Times newspaper, Smith said his team were shocked to hear about reports of racism in the Springbok side, which emerged after Geo Cronje, a 23-year-old lock, was expelled from a World Cup training camp for refusing to share a room with his black team-mate Quinton Davids.
Smith wrote: "I'd like to wish that Springbok rugby heals itself, and soon. I just don't understand - maybe it's because I'm from a different generation. I think I was nine years old when Madiba [Nelson Mandela] was released from prison. All I can remember is going to school and playing sport in a mixed South Africa."
Smith said the South African team, who arrived home this week from England, have had so many mixed cultures and backgrounds that he "thought it would be unnatural not to have a couple of 'clashes' during three months on the road."
But he then said: "Well, we must be unnatural because it simply never happened. We became like a family, albeit a fairly delinquent one at times, especially on the team bus. We were all deeply shocked when we read about the problems in the Bok camp, but that's about all I can say because I simply don't understand racism and it would never, ever be tolerated in any team I was a part of."

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